[macOS][Pets] Custom Toggle Pet shortcut is persisted but does not invoke openAvatarOverlay

What version of the Codex App are you using (From “About Codex” dialog)?

26.908.31457 (build 8690)

What subscription do you have?

Omitted for privacy; entitlement involvement has not been established.

What platform is your computer?

macOS 15.8 (24H22), Intel x86_64

What issue are you seeing?

A custom Toggle Pet shortcut is persisted in the local keybindings configuration, but pressing it produces no visible response and does not invoke the Pet/avatar overlay.

The persisted binding is:

[
  {
    "command": "openAvatarOverlay",
    "key": "Alt+`"
  }
]

The user first noticed the shortcut no-op around September 9–10, before identifying the separate Pet renderer failure reported in #44720. The exact app build installed when the shortcut first stopped responding is unknown.

Using Settings → Pets → Wake Pet still invokes the Pet window, so the Pet action is reachable through the UI. On the currently installed build, that window subsequently encounters the separate avatarOverlay renderer error documented in #44720; this report does not assert that the shortcut-registration failure and renderer failure have the same cause.

What steps can reproduce the bug?

1. Configure a custom Toggle Pet shortcut in the desktop app. In this case it is Option/Alt + backtick.
2. Confirm that the setting is persisted as command openAvatarOverlay in ~/.codex/keybindings.json.
3. With ChatGPT/Codex running, press the configured shortcut.
4. Observe that there is no visible response and the Pet window is not toggled.
5. Open Settings → Pets and use Wake Pet; the UI action does invoke the Pet window.

The shortcut no-op is currently based on the user's repeated physical-keyboard observation. It was not reproduced by synthetic key injection.

What is the expected behavior?

Pressing the configured shortcut should invoke openAvatarOverlay and toggle the Pet window, matching the Wake Pet / Tuck Away Pet UI action.

Additional information

• ~/.codex/keybindings.json was created on September 6 and last modified on September 10 at 01:29 KST. This confirms persistence of the binding, not the exact moment the failure began.
• The closest existing report found is the Windows global-shortcut registration failure in #42756.
• macOS reports #42258 and #43311 concern the opposite behavior, where Control+Space invokes the Pet unexpectedly.
• No exact existing macOS report was found for a persisted custom openAvatarOverlay shortcut that is a no-op.
• No user data was reset, and the application was not reinstalled for this report.

Start by tracing how ~/.codex/keybindings.json is loaded and how the openAvatarOverlay command is registered for macOS shortcuts. Compare that path with the Settings → Pets Wake Pet action, then reproduce the physical Option/Alt + backtick shortcut. Done means the persisted binding invokes the Pet window consistently, independently of the separate avatarOverlay renderer failure in #44720.